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Topic: Grammar and spellling that make you twitch (Read 74478 times)

What a hilarious thread. I work mostly with people whose first language isn't English, so they have a good reason for not getting things 100% right, but I find it quite interesting what people consistently get wrong.

Correct verb conjugations are tough. I see the right verb in the wrong tense a lot. Not really complex things, either, but present when they meant past or plural when they meant singular.

Prepositions are also difficult to use correctly. Some are straightforward and tangible--the cat is ON the box, the cat is IN the box--and others are kind of abstract and dependent on memorization more than definition--do you conduct research ON a subject or IN a subject or OF a subject or FOR a subject?

In Korean they don't have articles (a/an/the), so my Korean co-worker tends to simply leave them out. This drives me crazy when I proofread his stuff, because there are SO MANY of them. I told him to at least try to put them in, he ought to get some right just by chance if nothing else, and then I wouldn't have to mark them all.

I had one co-worker who kept capitalizing random words in a sentence. I don't know where that came from. Her native language was Spanish, not German, where I understand they capitalize a lot of nouns, but I don't think they do that in Spanish.

Word connotations are really interesting. A lot of people look up the word they want in a native language-to-English dictionary, but you can miss a lot of nuances that way. One co-worker wrote a protocol in which he repeatedly used the word "grab," as in "grab the ethanol" and "grab the beaker" and "grab the hot plate." He meant "get" or "obtain" or "go over to" or "use" or various other things. My boss freaked out and made him rewrite it. It does sound rather informal. But, she also had visions of people "grabbing" like parents grabbing for the last Tickle Me Elmo at the toy store on Christmas Eve--violently and without care. Because apparently we're all morons who would take the instructions literally.

My Spanish-speaking co-worker once sent me an email asking me to help her "redact" her report. That immediately brought of images of the military blacking out sensitive information before they release documents, so I was like, wah? I actually looked up the word and some dictionaries list it as a synonym for "edit," which was what she was really going for, as in "proofread." Connotations...

Saw someone who was complaining online about all the drug attics in the alley behind her office

Maybe they just have lofty standards.

Fuschia is another one I see misspelled a lot that makes me facepalm. "Fushia" - no. "Fuchia" - no, and that sounds vaguely obscene. "Fucshia" - that's even more vaguely obscene! "Foosha" - ...no. Just no.

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"So, what did you wish for?""I wished for... World domination, of course."

Fuschia is another one I see misspelled a lot that makes me facepalm. "Fushia" - no. "Fuchia" - no, and that sounds vaguely obscene. "Fucshia" - that's even more vaguely obscene! "Foosha" - ...no. Just no.

Fuschia is another one I see misspelled a lot that makes me facepalm. "Fushia" - no. "Fuchia" - no, and that sounds vaguely obscene. "Fucshia" - that's even more vaguely obscene! "Foosha" - ...no. Just no.

psst...it's "fuchsia"

And that's what I get for being half-asleep and not proofreading. *slinks off to the corner of mild shame*

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"So, what did you wish for?""I wished for... World domination, of course."

Saw someone who was complaining online about all the drug attics in the alley behind her office

Maybe they just have lofty standards.

Fuschia is another one I see misspelled a lot that makes me facepalm. "Fushia" - no. "Fuchia" - no, and that sounds vaguely obscene. "Fucshia" - that's even more vaguely obscene! "Foosha" - ...no. Just no.

Here's how I remember that--the plant is named after a German botanist.

Leonhard Fuchs.

So it is Fuchs-ia.

As for random capitalization of words--I've known native English speakers who capitalize words simply because they seem important to them.

Saw someone who was complaining online about all the drug attics in the alley behind her office

Maybe they just have lofty standards.

Fuschia is another one I see misspelled a lot that makes me facepalm. "Fushia" - no. "Fuchia" - no, and that sounds vaguely obscene. "Fucshia" - that's even more vaguely obscene! "Foosha" - ...no. Just no.

Here's how I remember that--the plant is named after a German botanist.

Leonhard Fuchs.

So it is Fuchs-ia.

As for random capitalization of words--I've known native English speakers who capitalize words simply because they seem important to them.

People do that at my Job constantly. I try to pretend I am reading German, where every Noun is capitalized. Since I work in mortgage, Condo, Co-op, Lease, Proprietary Lease ... all these get capitalized. I try not to let it get to me. We did have an entry level temp who used no caps, except at the beginning of a sentence - not in street names, cities, names, etc. She said, "That's just how I type." She had to go. Every time we get a new batch I remind them that "The" is not the way to file things. The easiest way to make me twitch (LOL, I even use that phrase) is to file something as, say, The Windsor, as opposed to Windsor, The. It kills me.

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It's alright, man. I'm only bleeding, man. Stay hungry, stay free, and do the best you can. ~Gaslight Anthem

Definitely not discrete = comes in individual units. For example, the number of people in your household is a discrete variable. You can't have 5.25 people in your house. If you do, then spelling is the least of your problems.

OK, I must be tired, but this one gave me a bad case of the giggles, DH and the cats are looking at me like I grew another head!

That one feels like people over-correcting the old grammar maven's favourite 'you and me are going to the cinema' where the 'me' as the subject should really be 'I'. Doesn't meant that all 'and mes' have to be replaced by 'and Is'.I mean, you would never say 'he gave it to I', would you.

No, I'm calm, I'm a leaf on the wind. *deep breath*

DH insisted that Sister Mary Godzilla taught him that it was always "Somebody and I," in all cases. I dropped the Chicago Manual of Style in his lap, thoughtfully bookmarked at the right place, and let him argue with THEM.

One of my own that I haven't seen covered yet: gots. "Johnny gots a new puppy!"

Also "I seen" and "drownded."

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